As we know from the recent Season 6.5 update introduction video, Riot Games announced that the Empire and Academy traits will be removed in the future. Since these champions are about to be eliminated, Riot will let the Empire trait shine but has decided to nerf all related aspects of this composition. Specifically, in their latest Twitter post, Riot announced that they will directly nerf Swain, Talon, the Empire effect, and the Rapid Firecannon. Here are the specific changes:
Hextech Core
Legendary Forge
Trinity Force: Stat provided reduced from 33 to 30.
Death’s Dance: Bonus Armor reduced from 40 to 20, bonus AD reduced from 25 to 20, attack speed provided reduced from 25% to 20%.
Pirate Gun: Bonus AD reduced from 30 to 20.
Champions
Cho’Gath: Base Armor and Magic Resistance reduced from 55 to 50, base attack speed reduced from 0.6 to 0.55.
Swain: Skill damage reduced from 250/375/525 to 250/340/480.
Talon: Skill damage reduced from 450/625/950 to 425/600/900.
Items
Rapid Firecannon: Bonus attack speed reduced from 60% to 55%.
Traits – Classes
Empire: Bonus damage from Tyrant reduced from 80/150% to 75/135%. Bonus damage for Empire champions reduced from 0/80% to 0/75%.
Looking at these changes, it’s clear that Swain and Talon are the two champions hit hardest as their base skill damage has been reduced. Typically, they are leveled up to 2 stars early (since they only cost 2 gold), and these units often receive the Tyrant buff from the Empire trait. Therefore, the aforementioned nerf in TFT patch 12.2b will significantly decrease the damage output of both Talon and Swain compared to the current state.
This is likely to have a significant impact on the meta, causing the reroll playstyle at level 6 to acquire 3-star Swain or Talon to completely disappear. Instead, these units will only serve to help players maintain health to reach level 7 and acquire stronger carries like Samira, Yone, or Fiora. It seems that team compositions revolving around the Mage and Assassin classes of the Empire trait will weaken considerably after patch 12.2b, while the Challenger compositions will not be too affected.
As for the items from the Legendary Forge core, their nerf is very reasonable. With their reduction to Gold tier, players can acquire these strong items right from the early stages of the game and easily snowball the match. Even having Pirate Gun early is like getting a free Gangplank unit in your team. Therefore, the adjustments mentioned above are necessary to balance this technology core.